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The Gold Rush

2005 was a dearth of D&D. An amazing feat, considering how much I love roleplaying. Anyone who’s taken part in one of my campaigns can attest to the fact that I put copious amounts of time and detail into games I run—and I enjoy every moment of it. So why was 2005 devoid of any and all gaming?

The unfortunate, honest truth is that I was jaded from D&D due to negative experiences from my previous group. Though leaving that group was the best thing I could have done for my psyche, it removed me from contact with the gaming population. Fortunately, D&D was replaced with theater; being cast in three consecutive plays filled my hours with line memorization, set building, and cast get-togethers.

Before I knew it, 2005 was drawing to a close and fall had lit the leaves on fire. With no theater on the docket and a buddy who was just aching to get his gaming hat on, I finally got out of my funk and went to find people to game with—and found people I did.

The deluge of gamers was astounding. Everywhere I turned, I found someone that gamed or someone that wanted to game. With that, my group was born: my best friend Will, his cousin Brad, my girlfriend Lia, her best friend Mark, and my roommate Kevin.

A new age in gaming was born! For the most part, none of them had any roleplaying experience. Sure, Will and Mark had played some CRPGs and Kevin was in an AD&D 2nd Edition group. But 3rd Edition? d20? This was going to be new territory. With the trusty D&D Basic Game in tow, we hammered out an understanding of the rules, played the pre-generated characters all the way to third level, finished the adventure, and embarked on a whole new plot that will take the characters to who knows where. Still, though they loved the characters, they wanted more: so I had them create fresh 1st-level characters and put them in the Greyhawk Campaign Setting at the dawn of a dark god’s struggle to regain power.

Now I’m sitting pretty with an awesome group and every day it seems like I meet more people that want to play or learn to play. Soon the group will be busting out at the seams! Kevin’s DM, who never gets to play, has heard of my games and wants me to start a third game. (For that, I’m thinking of running a d20 Modern campaign set in the Sliders universe.) The director of a movie I was recently cast in wants to learn. Lia’s friend Ryan is DMing his own group, but is looking to play with us every few Saturday’s. Mark plays in his own group and his DM has expressed interest in letting Will and I play. Even Will is interested in starting up his own game after having made several passes through the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual.